Expanding individualism : moral responsibility for social structural harms
Abstract
The central concern of this thesis is the examination of individual agents’ moral responsibilities
in large-scale social structures. I begin with a discussion of the emergence of social structural
harm and the history of the collective responsibility debate. I suggest that previous attempts to
make accurate responsibility ascriptions in cases of social structural harm have fallen short,
leaving responsibility for the harm caused underdetermined. Arguing that collectivist approaches
to large-scale harms are inadequate, because those participating in social structures cannot satisfy
the criteria for responsibility-bearing groups required by these accounts, I turn to an attempt to
provide an individualist account of responsibility in these cases presented by Young. I argue that
there are many interesting ideas in her work that support an account of collective responsibility
for social structures, but that her specific attempt to develop a new kind of non-moral
responsibility ultimately fails. I therefore examine an alternative account of joint responsibility
based on agent motivation and attitude presented by Bjornsson, who focusses on the reasons why
agents become involved and complicit in collective harms. Through the further development of
Bjornsson’s discussion of the importance of agent motivation and participation in harmful
practices, and Young’s analysis of the relationship between individual agents and social
structures, I suggest an alternative approach to analysing social structural harm: expanded
individualism. To support this account, I analyse the ways in which agents come to be involved
in these harms in a blameworthy manner, and the reasons why participation makes individuals
responsible for addressing the harms caused by the social structures in which they participate.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
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